Playing poker in a tourism playground

Von nzvr4poker, 06.08.2009, 1199 Aufrufe, 3 Kommentare | Kommentar hinzufügen

My journey to Queenstown started with a Jetstar flight from Auckland. However, due to the mediocre navigational systems onboard, our flight landed in Dunedin instead. I could feel a long and boring Friday was on the cards. At least Jetstar had the decency to put on buses for us and approximately four hours later I would be in Queenstown. On the bus there was a lovely French girl called Olivia and we chatted away in English and French which kept me occupied over the majority of the trip. When we arrived in Queenstown, we rendezvoused at the airport and my parents dropped Olivia at her backpackers on the way to our apartment.

Andy Hinrichsen, a friend of mine from Melbourne, was staying with me for a couple of nights before his accommodation package at the Novotel Lakeside kicked in. It was great to talk poker strategies with him ahead of our nights out on the town. The first night we experienced the famous Winnies restaurant where we had great pizza and a few beers to start things off. Later in the night a couple of my university friends from up north who now live down in Queenstown met us at one of the nightclubs and the good times were set to continue long into the night.

During Saturday my parents took Andy and I to the old gold mining town of Arrowtown, before embarking on a trip over the famous Crown Ranges to Wanaka where we had lunch, taking many photos on the way. Before we got back to Queenstown, we checked out the world-famous Kawarau River bungy jump. Bungy jumping isn’t my cup of tea but Andy vowed to come back and take on the mighty jump later in the week. One of the great things of the whole trip down there was that it wasn’t just going to be a poker tournament. The Pokerstars qualifiers were to be treated to a tourism package where they would choose from a snowfields or thrill-seeking adventures. The players choosing to ski or snowboard would get their own Pokerstars-branded equipment and the thrill-seeking package would see players discover the beautiful Milford Sound and also get a jet boat ride and go up the gondola and experience some local New Zealand culture.

When we got back to Queenstown we met up with Olivia and the five of us had a meal at the old speights ale house, before returning to the apartment to watch the All Blacks take on the Wallabies in the Bledisloe Cup rugby match. It was certainly four against one as Olivia wanted the All Blacks to win with only Andy cheering for the Wallabies. The Wallabies got off to a good start and held a handy lead but the All Blacks bounced back strongly to be only just trailing at half time. In the second half the All Blacks got their noses in front and held on to win 22-16. Queenstown was going to be buzzing with happy patrons who would want to enjoy a night out on the town.

Early on in the night, Andy and I met a couple of Australian girls who were posing as nurses. We hung out with them and checked out a few new clubs before heading home for the night. Sunday was a day of recovery before the Pokerstars party which was due to kickoff at 8 pm. Andy and I went over to the players’ hotel where we caught up with all of our other friends that were arriving. I then met a nice girl who was wandering around called Sacha and we went to watch the Warriors play the Roosters in the rugby league at the old speights ale house. Sacha was from Melbourne and so wasn’t really into her league. However I found out that she liked Essendon who are the arch-rival of my favourite aussie rules football team, Richmond. She asked me lots about the rules of league and how the game works as we watched a good Warriors victory.

The Pokerstars party came around quickly and I joined the likes of Bruno Portaro, Darko Balaban, Dennis Huntly and Tony Hachem as the drinks were served in a fast and furious manner. Also at the party I met Sven and Florian who had travelled all the way from Germany, who had actually been actively reading my blog here. Finally my good friends from Melbourne – Hugh and Julian Cohen, Tim Clarke and Tim English and of course Andy were all present. Olivia popped in for a while and we all had a ball of a time as usual.

My parents left town on Monday and I had a quiet day recovering after the Pokerstars party. Monday night saw the boys troop out to town again for more rounds of drinks. I met a nice girl called Sarah from Queensland at one of the bars and we had a couple of drinks before our group moved to some of the other clubs. Queenstown is literally the party capital of New Zealand. It reminded me a lot of Sydney as there was an opportunity to socialise to all hours each night of the week.

The poker tournament was underway and each day would see players play through five one-hour levels with a generous 20,000 chips to start with. I was slated to play on Wednesday and as I was feeling ill on Tuesday, I got some rest before it was my turn to accumulate chips. Wednesday dawned and I was feeling very sick so I went out before the start of play to have a meal. Soon it was 12.30 pm and 33 of us were playing on day 1C of the tournament. My health was worsening to a point where I lost my voice and was coughing badly. I was going to have to battle hard throughout the day and try to survive for as long as I could.

I started well flopping a couple of sets and extracting some good value from my hands as I pushed up to 30,000 chips early on. Another good hand I had was when I had in the big blind and flopped two pair. I check-raised my opponent’s flop bet, before check-calling the river on a draw-heavy board for a decent sized pot.  Later in the day I lost a bit of traction as I ran AKo into the pocket kings of Dennis Huntly and couldn’t get lucky as my stack slipped below 30,000. However, I did manage to survive the five levels ending the day with 29,700 in chips, which was on par with the average chip count.

91 of us made it through to the penultimate second day of the tournament, which was more than the proscribed capacity of 60. Because of this the field was split into two mini sessions of two and a half hours. I was down to play in the later mini session. Things went well in the early stages of the session as gmy stack increased to 45,000 chips but I then drifted back to around my day two start stack by the end of the two and a half hours. The next period of play started with level 8 with the blinds at 400/800 and an ante of 100. I knew I had to start to get moving but I was just having no luck picking up playable hands and when I was there was already action in front of me. I decided to be patient as the eliminations were coming at quite a rapid pace. We were soon down to 50 and then 40 players remaining as everyone sought a place in the top 18 which would guarantee $3,015 NZD and a coveted place in the field on the final day.

The blinds were at 600/1,200 and my chip stack was hovering around the low 20,000’s. My friends Sam Williams and Andy Hinrichsen were making steady progress towards the money and I intended to do my best to join them. In order for this to happen I was relying on re-shoving over the top of raises and hoping that if I was called I would double up. I ran out of luck when I pushed all-in over the top of a raise made by another player who held queens. I flopped a flush draw but my tournament was over when I couldn’t spike a spade on the turn or the river. When reflecting on my tournament, I was happy with my play in most areas but rued not having cards in critical junctures on day two. However reaching day two was an improvement over the previous ANZPT events, as I had stacked off on day 1 each time.

My mates, Sam and Andy both went on to make the money. Unfortunately Sam busted out in 16th position early on day three, but my other good mate Andy Hinrichsen was playing great. He made some amazing soul reads, including a call to eliminate a player and get heads up with just third pair. Andy produced a great display of poker over the three days, finishing runner-up to a worthy winner and picking up $57,285 for his troubles. Congratulations mate. A big group of the boys spent Saturday night helping Andy to celebrate his success before I retired to my apartment to watch the Springboks (South African rugby team) escape with a 28-19 victory over the All Blacks.

Here are some photos from Queenstown.

View of the Queenstown gardens.

Queenstown’s beautiful Lake Wakatipu. 

Overlooking Queenstown’s centre.

On Sunday I gathered up my gear and left back for home in the north island before embarking on my journey to tropical south Queensland, where I will be playing in the Surfers’ Paradise leg of the ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour) Queensland event. I am due to arrive on Monday before the tournament starts on Wednesday and will most likely be playing on Thursday which will be day 1B of the tournament. The tournament will also have a day 2 on Friday and day 3 on Saturday where players from both Brisbane and Surfers’ merge, before the final table is set to play out on Sunday. I then leave for Melbourne on the following Monday to play in the Victorian Champs before going on to Sydney to watch some sport and then back home to New Zealand. I look forward to giving you all updates for my mini tour around Australia. This is jimdownunder signing off.